


you & me burning matches

by el_em_en_oh_pee



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: (excluding himself), Alternate Universe - Bakery, Alternate Universe - Tattoos, Crack-adjacent, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Intercrural Sex, Kissing, Lovers to Friends, Lovers to Friends to Lovers, M/M, Matchmaking, Minor Doniya Malik/Jesy Nelson, Minor Niall Horan/Liam Payne, Oral Sex, Pain Kink, Rough Kissing, Slow Dancing, Wedding Planning, but the fraudulent bakery is an unfired chekhov's gun i'm sorry, fondant - freeform, harry is friends with all of them, louis dates literally every single one of harry's exes, the bakery is fraudulent, way too much fucking fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-26
Updated: 2016-12-26
Packaged: 2018-09-12 04:01:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,557
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9054547
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/el_em_en_oh_pee/pseuds/el_em_en_oh_pee
Summary: Harry might be risking his livelihood the tiniest bit, given how he and his work partner, Taylor, co-own a fraudulent wedding cake bakery that gets all their batter from a box. On top of that, his best-friend-slash-ex-boyfriend has the hots for his second-best-friend-slash-ex-girlfriend-slash-work-partner. It is, as people say, complicated.But that all quickly becomes the least of Harry's concerns when Zayn Malik - the one who got away - walks back into his life.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [colourexplosion](https://archiveofourown.org/users/colourexplosion/gifts).



> "write jessi a birthday zarry," i said. "something short and cute, no more than 5,000 words," i said. "there's no way i could pound out something longer than that in a few days, anyway," i said.
> 
> ha.
> 
> anyway the plague of longer fics continues!!! thanks as always to namra for the cheerleading and to both namra and jasmine for, when i asked 'what should this zarry be about,' (given the parameters that jessi said she likes zarry that is sweet in addition to being sexy, and distant friends reconnecting, and kidfic - which this is not) both simultaneously capslocking [THE CAKE ONE](http://dulosis.tumblr.com/post/152552288020/vampireapologist-topographygo-this-is-so). (meanwhile i had already started drafting [the tattoo one](http://dulosis.tumblr.com/post/148493140696/th4nkyoub3n-writing-prompt-s-you-run-a).)
> 
> in conclusion it's shockingly hard to write a fic when it's a "surprise" for one of the people who usually reads everything you write as you're writing it (read: who you annoy every five minutes into telling you whether it's acceptable for public consumption), so uh. i hope this is okay and you all like it!!! especially you, jessi, I LOVE YOU HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!!!!

"Harry, are you even listening to me?"

Harry lets the straw drag out of his mouth, leaving a slimy trail of overly-syrupy daiquiri over his lip and halfway down his chin. "Does that guy look familiar?" he asks, pointing his chin at the slight frame leaning over the bar. There's something familiar in the way his shirt is clinging to the dip of his hips, the way his hair lies against his neck.

"I'll take that as a no," Louis says, disgustedly, dropping his phone face-down on the sticky table and pushing it away. "Fat lot of good you are."

"I swear I've seen him before," Harry says. He furrows his brow, then squints, biting his lip to try and trigger a memory - any memory. 

It doesn't help that his vision is swimming a little with the drink. When Louis is having trouble with his love life, he drags Harry to the pub to talk about it. And while Harry loves Louis and supports him in his trials and tribulations with trying to find love, it's kind of weird that Louis's troubles with his love life always seem to involve Harry's exes (Louis, of course, also being one of them), so he always gets commiserately, commensurately drunk.

Not that Louis seems to mind. He likes Harry drunk just as much as he likes him sober.

Anyway, there's more pressing matters at hand than Louis getting the hots for Harry's ex-girlfriend-slash-current-coworker. The guy's neck is slim, and the neckline of his shirt is wide, draping around his collarbones. Harry can tell even from just behind. He's kind of flat, as far as arses go, but his shoulders are wicked broad. Harry wants to see how much of them he can cover with one hand.

He probably should have steered away from the rum tonight. Rum always makes Harry randy.

"Is this weird for you?" Louis asks, belatedly. "I know you've dated her."

"You always ask that," Harry says, dragging his eyes back to Louis. His vision swims. "It's always weird." Even though they didn't even start working together until well after their breakup, it's weird. 

"Yeah, but you don't mind, do you?"

"If you and Taylor actually work out, it'll be too hilarious to mind," Harry says, patting Louis's hand heavily. He's been picturing Taylor, who's taller than Louis barefoot, going out on a date and wearing heels for it all night, and laughing intermittently into his drinks. "Just text her, bro. She'll laugh at you but maybe she'll say yes."

"Ugh," Louis whines. He turns and finally, finally looks toward the bar -- and freezes, just as the guy turns half-around to laugh at what the girl next to him is saying, pitching his head back. His adam's apple bobs with the effort. Harry runs the tip of his tongue over his teeth as he watches, then tries to catch at the straw of his drink with it. "Haz, isn't that Zayn?"

"Oh, fuck," Harry says. His straw drops onto the floor.

+++

Harry is extremely hungover at work the next morning, which is what he gets for having that much sugar in his drinks. He figures Taylor deserves his whining, though, because she's indirectly the reason he got so drunk last night. Screw her and her wicked grins and witty repartee and the way Louis always swings by the bakery for scraps and samples during his lunch break, both to talk to his best good pal Harry and to try (and fail) to flirt with Taylor.

Harry supposes he could throw both Taylor and Louis a bone and let Taylor know that she's the latest object of Louis's woebegone need to drag Harry to the pub, but he's not certain of whether she likes Louis or just tolerates him, so he's going to leave it lie for now.

Anyway. Taylor is a lovely, lovely girl and he very much enjoys working with her, even though he knows what she looks like naked, but she fully deserves the dramatic re-telling of his near-encounter with Zayn Malik last night. He's spent the past forty minutes alone describing the way Zayn's shirt clung to his hips. He hasn't even got to the bit where Zayn half-turned and Louis identified him. 

"Wait," says Taylor, when Harry pauses for a breath. She dusts cornstarch and icing sugar onto the worktop and sets on divesting a block of fondant from its clingwrap. "Who's Zayn?"

"Remember when I kept getting all those tattoos?" Harry asks. He probably should help with something. He looks around the kitchen, but the lights are really bright, so he winces and closes his eyes and leans against the double-doors of the walk-in. Maybe he can help by keeping out of the way. 

"Yes, because that time is 'always,'" Taylor says. There's a crinkle and a thump, which, from experience, Harry knows means that she's crumpled up the clingfilm and whacked her rolling pin into the fondant block.

"Heyyyy," Harry protests. She's not (entirely) wrong, though. He forces himself to open his eyes again. "I mean the tally mark ones."

Taylor nods, understanding dawning in her eyes. "The serial killer tattoos."

"Honestly, why do I put up with you?"

"No one else would be an accessory to your less-violent crimes," Taylor says, which is… mostly true.

"False, Louis would," Harry says.

"Louis can't bake," Taylor points out. 

"Fair enough." Harry tries to push himself into a full stand without swaying. "Anyway, I wasn't counting casualties. He just thought I was. Maybe."

Taylor frowns. "Wait," she says. "Zayn the tattoo artist?"

"Nah, he wasn't licensed or anything," says Harry. "He was just really hot. I didn't want him fucking up any big tattoos, though, so I just got tally marks whenever I went to him."

"And you wonder why he thought you were a criminal," says Taylor, rolling her eyes extravagantly. She's quiet for a moment, and Harry closes his eyes again so he can listen to the rhythmic thump-press of her rolling pin on the fondant. He sways with the noise, pleasantly so.

"I guess it's a logical assumption to make," Harry allows. "I _guess_."

"What were you actually counting?" Taylor asks, carefully.

Harry grins. He has to open his eyes for this, so he does so, carefully, ready to flinch whenever she throws flour or icing sugar or whatever his way. "The number of times I saw him."

True to form, Taylor shrieks and reaches into the nearest open container - sanding sugar - and throws it in his direction. "You're the worst person I know," she says, clearly suppressing a laugh.

"You love me," Harry tells her. 

"God help me," Taylor agrees.

+++

Zayn had gone all weird on Harry after Harry told him what the tally marks were really for. "You know, it's illegal for an unlicensed artist to give tattoos," he'd told Harry, closing Harry's fist around the latest wad of bills he'd brought to pay for the next little line marching down his arm.

"Then will you get coffee with me, instead?" Harry had asked, hopefully. But Zayn had shook his head no.

"I'm leaving town anyway," he'd said. "I've got this school thing."

And that had been that. 

It wasn't like Harry was waiting on another hookup _per se_ \- Gemma's emailed Harry enough feminist thinkpieces to know how not-on that is. He'd asked for the first tattoo the morning after they'd met, still sore from Zayn pressing Harry against the wall out back of the club and working his jeans down over his hips and his knees without even breaking the kiss, because he'd seen the ink and the needles and he'd wanted to see Zayn again, but their encounters had turned into Harry going over every few weeks, or days, or however long Harry could force himself to stay away, for another. 

Zayn had never asked what they were for, but he also hadn't responded to the way that the pain of pushing ink under Harry's skin had gone straight to his dick. It had been obvious, every time, the way that Harry chubbed up in his pants the minute the needle sunk into his arm, and even if it _hadn't_ been obvious, the way that Harry would squirm to fit a hand down the front of his skinny jeans to adjust himself each time it happened would have cleared that mystery right up. 

But each time, Zayn had just cleared his throat and gone back over the line.

He was taciturn at first, a little reluctant to share information. But by the end, Harry knew all about how Zayn wanted to get an advanced degree in comparative literature, even though he was embarrassed by it. How he wanted to be able to help his family move out from the little flat his parents shared with his younger sisters above their restaurant, but he wanted to write and analyze books more than he wanted a high-paying job. How his elder sister was an anesthesiology nurse, making about thirty times more than Zayn could ever hope or expect to do. 

And Harry shared in equal part, about his own sister and how they'd all lived over top of a pub before his mum got serious with Robin, about how he'd worked in a bakery during secondary school and college and had gone off to uni with plans of studying sociology but ended up missing decorating cakes just as much as he missed his cat. How he'd started dating Louis the very same week they met, but then they'd become best friends instead before the end of the month.

By Harry's twenty-third tally mark in five months, he and Zayn were friends, he thought, enough for Zayn to come out and meet Louis, who was dating Harry's ex Nick, and Liam. Zayn had brought Niall along, and he and Liam immediately hit it off. By that point, he was angling less for Zayn to suck him off post-tattoo and more for taking Zayn on a proper date or, short of that, making pub nights a regular thing for the five of them.

But then Zayn had to joke about Harry getting serial killer tattoos, so Harry told him the whole, entire truth, and Zayn went quiet, and that was the last tally-mark tattoo Harry ever got.

The night before Zayn left town, he told Harry that Harry was the sexiest person he knew, but that he wasn't sure he meant it as a compliment. 

They'd texted, since Zayn left. It was infrequent, and the messages were often tense, but Harry had thought that they were close enough for Zayn to tell him if he was coming back.

And even if he wasn't, surely Niall would have told Liam, who would have mentioned it to Harry, or to Harry via Louis, or whatever.

But it's been two years, so. Maybe he just hadn't seen the point.

+++

The point becomes a lot more pertinent four days later, when Harry is in the back of the bakery making one of his special-recipe wedding cakes.

The cakes are simple enough to make. Both he and Taylor care a lot more for the decorations than the baking -- and they agree that most wedding-goers feel the same -- so in their triple-locked back pantry they have shelves and shelves of box mixes tucked away behind the bins of flour and sugar. They add full-fat milk instead of water and extra eggs, and squeeze in a little extra vanilla or chocolate or fruit, depending on the order, and then it's easy enough to bake up and set aside while they whip up from-scratch buttercream and fondant and frosting and glaze and ganache, and create increasingly-elaborate decorations. He and Taylor take turns with the baking and share the decorating duties - mostly. It's actually Taylor's turn to bake this cake, but it's nearly Louis's lunch break so Harry had _very_ casually offered to throw this one together while she womans the register.

He's just at the stage of beating in the eggs when he hears the bell on the door tingle. Taylor's voice rises up - he can hear the lilt of her greeting more than the actual words she uses, perfectly cheerful but without the wry twist she gets when it's Louis coming in - and then a cacophonous response. 

One voice stands out to him.

"There's no way," he whispers to himself, dusting box mix off the front of his apron. He darts a glance around to make sure the empty packages are nowhere to be seen - can't be too careful; people finding out that their special-order cakes come from boxes would ruin them and their business - and tiptoes toward the swinging door leading to the counter.

The voice speaks up again, clearer now that his ear is pressed against the doorframe. Northern, thick around the vowels in a way that makes it sound deeper than it actually is…

When he pushes the door open, Zayn is stood there at the counter with five women. Clearly, they're his family. Well, most of them. Harry remembers Zayn having three sisters, not four, so the redhead is probably an odd one out. He's focused entirely on Taylor, though, enough that he doesn't notice Harry coming in through the door.

"We actually only do samples by appointment," Taylor is saying, apologetically. "We've got space on Friday if it's urgent."

"It is," the oldest of the women -- Trisha, probably, Harry's memory supplies -- says. "We're so sorry; we thought the cake was all sorted but the bakery fell through at the last minute."

"How quickly will you need a cake after that, then?" Harry asks. Zayn's eyes fly to him, wide. 

So he didn't know this was Harry's bakery. Something twists in Harry's chest and settles, a little askew. It's not disappointment, not exactly, but it's certainly tinged with it.

"Our wedding is in a month," the eldest of the girls says, tucking her long hair behind her ears and reaching out to take the redhead's hand. "The fourteenth. Will that be okay?"

"Um," Taylor says, flipping through the calendar app on their register ipad. "I think--"

"It'll be just fine," Harry interrupts. "We've got a few orders around then, but if you're okay with a simpler design, we shouldn't have any trouble turning it around for you." When Taylor turns to look at him, surprise and a little bit of reproach written all over her face, he raises his eyebrows at her, meaningfully. "That is, if your tasting goes well."

"We don't --" Taylor starts to mouth at Harry, but then the door bursts open again. 

"Have you got any leftovers for a poor, hungry stranger?" Louis asks, plaintive and dramatic.

"Like clockwork," Taylor whispers, rolling her eyes at Harry and turning to face Louis. "Tomlinson, we're with customers."

"That you are," Louis says, eyes wide as he starts to take in the scene. "And what beautiful customers they -- oh my _fuck_. Zayn Malik, is that really you?"

"Hey, bro," says Zayn, a little uncertainly. "Been a while."

Understanding dawns across the sliver of Taylor's face that Harry can see. "Does 2 pm work for you this Friday?" she asks, tapping through the ipad calendar again. "My esteemed business partner here has an opening then, so we can fit you in and work out all the necessary details if you like what we've got to offer."

"That would be wonderful," Zayn's sister says. "Um, it'll be me - Doniya Malik - and my fiance, Jessica?"

"Jessica Nelson," the redhead - Jessica - says, extending a cheerful hand. "Call me Jesy."

Harry shakes it, forcing himself to meet Jesy and Doniya's eyes in turn, instead of keeping his gaze trained on Zayn. "Pleasure," he says, smiling as Taylor nudges him surreptitiously from behind.

+++

"What the fuck," says Taylor, once they're back in the back room and Harry is, once again, mixing cake batter.

"I know," Harry says. He runs a hand through his hair until it bumps against his bun, then winces. He'll have to go wash his hands again now. 

"This kind of thing doesn't happen," Taylor says, gesturing wildly around the room and landing on nothing in particular. "You know that, right? This is like, a tired and overused romantic plot device. This can't be real life."

"Zayn showing up in my shop - sorry, our shop - right after I saw him in a pub after ages of never seeing him at all?" Harry asks. He goes over to their industrial sinks to wash his hands again, and pauses, one hand on the tap. "Wait, you don't actually think that kind of romantic plot device is overused, right?"

Taylor sighs. "No," she admits, a sullen note to her tone.

"Me, neither," Harry says, entirely relieved. He turns to wash his hands properly. Over his shoulder, he adds, "It would be more of that plot device if I had actually ever been in love with him."

"Eh," Taylor says. "Sometimes these things start with just obsessive lust."

"Hey," Harry protests. He turns around and flicks his wet hands at her until she shrieks and flaps her hand, trying to bat the water droplets away. 

When they've calmed down again, Taylor sighs. "We really don't have time to take that wedding cake on, you know."

"I know," Harry says. He darts in and presses a grateful kiss to Taylor's cheek. "Plus there's no guarantee that I'll even see Zayn again through doing it."

"Well," Taylor humphs. "As long as you're aware." But she's smiling at him, excited, so Harry smiles back at her. It can be hard to remember, as they joke about their cake subterfuge and complain about some of the overly-exacting customers and how impossible finalizing their products can be seen, that they're in this business partly because they love decorating cakes and partly because they love seeing the faces of couples on their wedding days as they cut into said cakes. But he and Taylor both are, at their cores, hopeless romantics.

If she's conspiring to put him in Zayn's good graces, even just to rekindle their kind-of friendship, then he'll have to work extra hard to fix Taylor up with the person of her dreams -- Louis or otherwise.

+++

_Have you heard from him?_

Louis doesn't reply to the text for, like, six minutes, so Harry rings him up instead of waiting any longer.

"Bro, I'm kinda in the middle of something," Louis says, picking up.

"Niall and Liam aren't going to invite you to be the filling to their sandwich, like, ever," Harry says, not unkindly. "So I doubt you're in the middle of anything interesting."

"You don't know my life," says Louis. His voice is even tinnier than usual today. 

"I know your life better than anyone," Harry says, laughing. He wedges his phone between his shoulder and his ear so that he can tick off bits of Louis's schedule on his fingers as he goes along. "You wake up, you eat a sausage roll as you're running to get to work on time because you forgot to buy groceries, you teach a billion kids how to tie their shoes, you come pester me and Taylor at the bakery because you love us both _so_ much and always forget to pack a lunch, you go take a nap with the billion kids, you go home, you write poems about curve of Taylor's eyebrows and lips, you call me to go to the pub with you, rinse and repeat." He pauses, frowns, counting over his fingers. "Oh, and sometimes you call your mum."

"Fuck you," Louis says, but he's laughing. "You totally ticked those off on your fingers, didn't you?"

"I guess you also know my life," says Harry. He stretches, wincing as his back creaks a little from where he was hunched over, rolling out fondant to craft little flowers and birds all afternoon. "What, were you trying to find a rhyme for 'long luscious luxurious legs and hair'?"

"Okay, I was drunk and cannot be held accountable for saying that phrase and you know it," says Louis. 

"Like, I'm obviously going to feel really bad if you were actually in the middle of something important and interesting," says Harry. "Do I need to put my apology voice on?"

Louis sighs heavily over the phone. "I was watching One Tree Hill," he admits.

"Dude, I told you to stop answering my calls when you're masturbating."

"I was _not_ ," Louis says, outrage colouring his voice. "Chad Michael Murray wasn't even on screen!"

Harry chooses not to say anything to that - it's obviously a joke, probably, hopefully - but he files it away for the next time he needs fodder for teasing Louis. "Have you seen Zayn?"

"Not since we were both at your bakery yesterday, no," Louis says. He pauses, then says, "I thought you didn't have a thing for him."

"I respected his autonomy and choice and did not want to pressure him into a thing he did not seem to want with me when we started hanging out in a different context," Harry says, primly. It's the gist of the argument that he'd got from all those articles Gemma sent his way. "I did not want him to think that I was only befriending him so that I could get him to fuck my brains out. Again."

Louis laughs, bursts of static coming over the phone in time with the noise, almost like punctuation. "You're feminist of the year, Styles," he says, appreciatively. "I'm sure Zayn was appreciative of the fact that you based your friendship on him penetrating you with his needle instead of his dick."

They weren't wrong, the articles. They made really good points, and Harry is grateful to have read them. He'd tried sending them Louis's way, back when Gemma first started emailing them, but Louis had told him that he was the oldest brother of four girls - with more maybe on the way - so he'd already read them on his own accord. "I like to think so."

"So you're saying that you did have a thing for him."

"Louis, I would let Zayn raw me," Harry says. He knows that he's being overly dramatic - exaggerating a little, maybe - but that's the beauty of his and Louis's friendship. They're both a little bit dramatic, and more than a little bit competitive, and they've seen each other naked. It's a lethal combination, because they mostly end up trying, consistently, to one-up each other in dramatics. "But only if he wanted our relationship to be predicated on such intimacy."

"I see," Louis says, and then his tone switches, becoming more serious. "It's been almost two years, Haz. You still feel like that?"

Harry takes a deep breath, and forces himself to match Louis for tone. "Honestly? I don't know," he says. "I hardly know the guy anymore. He was honestly, like, the best lay I've ever had -"

"Hey, fuck you," Louis interjects.

"Oh, ha-ha," Harry says. "You know what I mean, you tosser."

Louis sniffs. "You didn't deserve me _or_ Taylor," he says. "If she falls in love with me, we're going to be so well-suited for each other we're going to forget we ever touched your adequate-but-forgettable dick."

"My dick rocked your world, you liar," Harry says. He's getting off-task again, though, so he forces himself to focus. "Anyway, he was great, and I liked him a lot. You know. I thought about asking him on a date, before things got weird."

"Because you were getting tattoos to commemorate every time you saw him," Louis says.

"When you put it that way, I sound like a fucking creep," says Harry. "I just really like getting tattoos, and those are low-commitment. I bet I could get them professionally covered up with something _really_ sick. _Not_ a full-on portrait of Zayn," he adds, sharply, before Louis can crack a joke about it.

"I was going to suggest one of me, actually," says Louis. "And Taylor. Dressed up like American Gothic."

"Is that the only American artwork you can think of to commemorate her?" Harry asks, interestedly. "I'll get it if you two ever get married. My wedding gift to you."

"Thank you," Louis says. His tone is drier than the Sahara, so Harry can't help but laugh.

"Anyway," he says, when he's pulled himself back together. "He's fit as fuck, still, but I feel like I should get to know him again before I decide if I still want something with him. And I was asking, 'cause, like. I wanted to know if I'd scared him off from any kind of friendship."

"I can check, if you want?" Louis offers. 

"Please," says Harry. He pauses, about to ring off, when a thought occurs to him. "And remember - he's not technically my ex, so he's not technically your type."

"Touche, dickhead," Louis says. His laugh is only cut off by him ending the call.

+++

Taylor takes their ten o'clock tasting appointment Friday morning, leaving Harry to finalise the decorations on the cake for tomorrow's wedding. She sets aside enough samples for Zayn's sister - it was simple enough to double the batches - and swoops out into the main room, whilst Harry fiddles about with whipping up the egg white wash for the sugared violets the happy couple requested.

He finds that he's a little nervous, which is ridiculous and untimely, because he keeps picking petals off all the flowers they've got set aside to coat and press into the decorative fondant pillowing on tomorrow's wedding cake, instead of dunking through the coating process.

"I'm afraid I'm not being a really helpful co-worker for Taylor this week," he tells his favourite stand mixer glumly, after sweeping a tiny pile of bruised purple petals into the trash and forcing himself to actually get some real work done.

The stand mixer doesn't answer, but the sultanas they've got soaking in brandy for upcoming fruitcakes go a long way toward improving his mood, as he munches on them as a distraction.

At quarter til two, he ducks into the bathroom to get his hair in order, taking it down and shaking it out and then twisting it back up into a knot at the back of his head. He squints at himself in the mirror, rubbing at the circles under his eyes, then wipes the smudges of icing sugar off his sleeves, uncovered as they are by his apron.

Then it's just setting out the little platters of cake and tasting forks on the table in the front of the bakery and waiting for them to show up.

Doniya enters the bakery first, tugging Jesy along by her hand. Harry stands up, ready to welcome them, when Zayn slouches in behind them. He shoots an unreadable look at Harry from under his eyebrows, which make a complicated sort of move.

"Brought my brother along," Doniya says, apologetically. "In case there's a tie and we need someone to argue for one cake above another."

"That's fine," Harry says. His voice sounds a little strangled, even to his ears. He clears his throat, and smiles at them. "There's enough forks to go around, and friends like Zayn are always welcome."

Belatedly, he realises that Doniya may not know about him and Zayn knowing each other, that it may not be kosher to bring that up. But he decides that the way that Zayn's eyes fly to his, wide and warm and brown, a spark of recognition and another of interest glimmering in their depths, means that it's fully worth it.

Anyway, Doniya doesn't react in any way at all to Harry knowing Zayn's name. Her mouth doesn't even quirk.

"Make yourselves comfortable," Harry says. His hands are feeling very warm, and he wipes his palms off on his work trousers under the table after he sits. He's off-kilter - that's the problem. Normally by now he'd be all grins, flirting gently with both members of the couple, joking about wedding cakes and buttercream. And here he is, silent, burning under Zayn's equally-silent gaze.

This won't do at all.

"You said on your intake that you weren't interested in the traditional wedding fruitcake," he says, clearing his throat. "But didn't have any other limits, so I took the liberty of preparing for you four of our most popular flavours, each with a different frosting. We can mix and match as you like. Yours is a July wedding?"

"Yes," says Jesy. "Royal purple and gold are our colours -- the bakery we went to before was doing us a vanilla lavender cake with lavender-coloured and -scented buttercream."

"Is that what you would like from us?" Harry says, frowning slightly. "We don't specialise in florals, but we can whip something up if you'd like."

"Oh, Zayn said as much when he recommended you to us," Doniya says, the corner of her mouth curling up as she speaks. "We're not wedded to a cake that tastes like soap, really."

Harry's eyes fly to Zayn, who is looking studiously at his cuticles. "Great," he says, smiling at both the brides. "The first cake I'll have you try is our white cake. We can also do an angel food, but that does tend to be weighed fairly heavily down by anything but a whipped cream topping. This one has a simple vanilla buttercream on it right now." He pauses, then winks at his audience. "I can serve it onto little plates for you, or I can just push this slice forward and you can have a free-for-all."

"Definitely the free-for-all," Jesy says, already reaching forward, so Harry slides the plate on over to the three of them. 

"We can also do a coconut topping, or, like, anything else," Harry says. "Usually we cover the buttercream with a fondant, because our couples like a sleeker look, but it's really your call."

He sounds stilted. He knows he sounds stilted. Still, it's all he can do to keep from rambling on, endlessly, as he watches the elegant dive of fork-into-cake.

Like all their cakes, these are from a box. They're gussied up, of course, by the usual full-fat milk and extra flavours, but the fact remains that this couple - and Zayn - are eating a Duncan Hines special. At least it's a brand that Taylor brings over from the States, instead of one from the Sainsbury's down the road.

"This is really good," Zayn mumbles, with a full mouth. He's pretty even when he's chewing and there are crumbs on his lips, which is unfair, really. Harry looks like a giant amphibian when he's eating, not like an eating model designed for male yoghurt commercials, or whatever.

It doesn't escape Harry that this is the first thing Zayn has said directly to him since he walked right back into Harry's life. His heart pounds all the same, though, because Harry is a parody of himself.

"Thanks," he says, meeting Zayn's eyes briefly. "I bought it at Waitrose on Bridge street myself." Zayn's lips curve into an amused little smirk, and Harry's heart soars at the sight. It's pesky -- he'd hoped that he wouldn't feel that way anymore, if he were confronted with Zayn face to face again, and now here he is, not even ten minutes before the guy and already his stomach is swooping pleasurably at the sight of him.

"Well, that Waitrose have done a great job on the cake," Doniya says, reaching for one of the little cocktail napkins and patting her mouth clean. "What else have you got?"

"This one is a lemon-scented yellow cake," Harry says, passing the next plate down. "We can do a plain old vanilla yellow cake, too, or any number of other flavours. I've paired it with an Italian meringue frosting, but again, that, like any good relationship, is flexible."

"Cheeky," Jesy says, approvingly, and takes a large bite.

That one goes over well, too, as does the spice cake with salted caramel buttercream and white fondant, and the rich dark chocolate cake with a mirror-shiny ganache and marshmallow fondant decorations. "So," says Harry, steepling his fingers together after they've sampled the last option, and leaning forward in his seat. "Are you interested in doing business together?"

"Oh, absolutely; your cakes are delicious," Doniya says. "But are you certain a month isn't too short-notice?"

"A month isn't a terribly long amount of time, no," says Harry. "Mostly because of scheduling all the cakes we have. This bakery is really just me and Taylor's little culinary baby, you see; it's just the two of us here." Which, to be fair, is less about the expense of hiring other employees and more about the expense that an employee leaking news about the source of all the cakes might incur. 

"So is it impossible?" Jesy asks. "Or will you just, like, charge an expediting fee or something?"

Harry reaches for one of the cocktail napkins and pulls a pen that he's got jammed into his bun. "This is our going rate," he says, sketching out some numbers. "That covers one large, three-tiered cake with a basic buttercream and fondant icing. Decals cost more, depending on how intricate you want them." He pauses, looking up at the women. "All layers can be the same flavour, or they can each be different; there's no difference in cost there." He pauses, and weighs out the possible benefits of giving Zayn's sister a discount -- but getting benefits, especially sex benefits, for doing that would feel really dirty -- against the rage he might incur from Taylor for giving them said discount. "We do have one massive order going out the same week as your wedding, so we'd have to add a slight surcharge to cover the extra time we'd be spending here in our kitchen." 

He does some quick mental math, then scribbles out two new numbers, then turns the napkin around and slides it across the table. "The first number," he says, tapping on it with the back of his pen, "is the baseline cost. The second number is a projected cost for a cake with the works." He pauses, bites his lip, and glances at Zayn, who is licking a smudge of chocolate ganache off the corner of his mouth. "If you go smaller, it will cost less."

"We're going to have a hundred people at the reception," says Doniya. "Nice and small."

"No, sweetie, that's huge," says Jesy. She turns to Harry and winks. "Eighty of those are hers."

"Twenty of them are people we've met together!" Doniya says, and they settle into a flurry of bickering.

This is familiar to Harry. It happens with about half of the couples he meets through his job. But Doniya's eyes are shining, and Jesy is holding her hand and running her thumb over Doniya's knuckles, so Harry doesn't think they've got anything to worry about there.

He's so focused on taking in the cadence of their argument -- it feels well-worn; familiar and fond and only a little bit truly annoyed - that he hardly even notices Zayn sliding his chair back and moving around, closer, to Harry, until Zayn speaks. "They'll be at this for a while," he says. "They always are." He rolls his eyes in that way he has, the one that invites Harry to do the same.

Harry resists, but only because he's learned to control his facial expressions more with this line of work. "Wedding jitters?"

"Marrying your best friend of twelve years, more like," Zayn says, chuckling. God, his laugh is so beautiful. "They know each other too well for their own good."

"Ah," Harry says. He pauses, scratching absently at his arm, pushing up his sleeve to do so, then decides to ask Zayn his biggest question without equivocating. "So. You recommended us to them, huh?"

Zayn's cheeks redden slightly. Without directly meeting Harry's eyes, he says, "I saw the announcement when you bought the place last year," he admits. "That stuff you used to make always tasted really good, so." It had also been from scratch, then, and it had never actually been cakes. Harry refrains from pointing either of these things out. "They were getting married here, I let them know about your little bakery." He clears his throat, then nods down at Harry's arm. "I see you haven't got any new tally marks on there."

Oh. Harry pulls his sleeve back down over the little lines. "Haven't serial killed any new victims," he jokes. "This job of mine takes up way too much time for that."

"And here I was, hoping you'd go full-on Sweeney Todd with my sister's wedding cake," Zayn says, deadpan. 

"That costs extra," Harry says. "It falls under 'extra frills and decals.'"

"I'll keep that in mind," Zayn says. He glances back down at Harry's arm, uncertain, then looks back up at Harry. "I --"

"We'd like the full-size option," Jesy interjects, before Zayn can finish his thought. "Unless - I don't suppose fairy cakes are a viable alternative?"

"Jess, you know we decided against fairy cakes," says Doniya.

"Yeah, but imagine, it'd be so easy if we didn't have to cut anything," says Jesy.

Zayn sighs. "They already discussed this at the other bakery, too," he tells Harry. 

"You must love your sister very much," Harry says. "Following her around to all these wedding appointments."

"Hey, it's really not a hardship to eat free cake," says Zayn. He takes a deep breath, then looks up at Harry through his eyelashes. "Also I'm in town all summer. Break from school and that. Thought I'd come back for the first time in, like, almost two years and see how much has changed."

"I've only got above-the-board tattoos in that time," Harry says. It's not a euphemism, but he's fully aware that the way his voice dips when he says 'above-the-board' makes it sound like one. "And opened this bakery."

"And you've grown your hair out longer," Zayn points out. He reaches forward, like he's going to touch it, but drops his hand at the last minute. "Also, they closed that curiosities shop downtown?"

"I know!" Harry says, shaking his head. "It's a fucking travesty, is what it is."

"I hate to interrupt your little love-fest," Doniya says, tone rich with amusement. "But is it possible to get a two-tiered cake and then an equivalent number of fairy cakes?"

Harry clears his throat. "It'll cost more," he says, apologetically. "It's an oven space thing, and also fairy cakes take longer to decorate. But it's certainly possible."

"And the cake can be really sleek and fancy, and the fairy cakes can have that whipped meringue topping stuff?" Jesy asks, hopefully.

Harry smiles. "Absolutely," he says. He gets up to retrieve their bakery ipad, and clicks open an order form. "Have you come to any conclusions?"

"Spice and chocolate for the layers," says Doniya. "With the vanilla buttercream and fondant. Maybe with little purple flowers? And gold accents?"

"And white fairy cakes," Jesy adds. "With the whipped topping. Nice and fluffy. Also possibly purple?"

Harry taps the requests into the form. "Not a problem," he says. "I can work out a design and email it to you by this time next week, if you like? Or you can come in again - we have a slot free at four next Friday - and we can hash it out in person. We do require a down payment with the consultation, but we'll bill you for the final price of the cake upon delivery."

"That would be fantastic, thank you," Jesy says. The relief in her voice is palpable. "It's so wonderful of you to step up on such short notice."

"Yeah, we were a little worried we'd have to ask mum to bake the cake," Doniya says. "You're lifesavers, you are."

"It's not a problem," Harry says. He clicks the button on the ipad so that the screen goes dark. "We're just happy to help."

"I'm so glad Zayn told us about you," says Doniya. She's got that wicked glint in her eye again. Harry really does need to figure out what exactly is going on there. "Your little bakery."

"It's nothing," says Zayn. "Really." He catches Harry's eye and makes a face, one that Harry interprets as _sisters, right?_.

"It's been lovely to work with you," Harry tells Doniya and Jesy. "And to see you again, Zayn.

"Yeah, bro, it's been a while," Zayn says. He claps Harry's arm with one warm hand; Harry shivers at the touch. 

He's led them to the front door with promises of being in touch with cake designs when the need to not say goodbye to Zayn becomes overwhelming. "Zayn - Me and Louis are going to that old pub tonight," he blurts. "Niall and Liam might show, too, I'm not sure. If you'd like to join us?"

"Sounds sick," Zayn says. His smile is a proper full one now. "I'll try to make it."

In Zayn-speak, that means yes. Or at least it used to. Harry grins back at him, slow and big. "We'll be there by eight."

+++

"So are you and Zayn going to be boyfriends now?" Taylor asks, once Harry slips back into the kitchen.

"Hopefully one day," Harry says, without even thinking twice about it.

Taylor gives him a piercing look. "You really like him, huh."

Harry decides to answer the question seriously. "Don't know," he says. "I think I could, you know? Given time."

Taylor nods. "You're something else, you know that?"

"How do you figure?" Harry asks. He pokes his nose into a bowl of batter. "What's this waiting on?"

"Just a hint of lemon," says Taylor, so Harry goes to the walk in to get some lemons to zest and juice. When he's back at the table, microplane and lemon in hand, she looks him in the eye and says, "With any other ex, I'd be so mad about this conversation."

"You know me," Harry says, wiggling his eyebrows. "I just date people to make friends." It's not true, really, but it's a long-standing joke among his group of friends. He's never dated Niall - Liam snatched him up almost as soon as they all met him - but he's at the _very_ least hooked up with everyone else in their group at least once. He pauses, glances at Taylor out of the corner of his eye, and starts dragging the lemon peel over the microplane in slow, deliberate strokes. "And to help Louis find his next SO, I guess."

"He does seem to go for people you've dated, doesn't he," Taylor says. She shows no sign of acknowledging that she, too, meets those criteria, just tips more cocoa powder into her whipping cream and folding it in gently before carrying the bowl over to the stand mixer. She sets it to whip, then pulls out their housemade marshmallows, dropping them into a bowl with a splash of water and setting it in the microwave.

"Suppose so," Harry says. He taps the lemon to the top of the microplane to knock the zest into the batter, then rolls it on the worktop to loosen up the juice. Since Taylor is standing at the microwave, he goes to check on the whipped cream. It's nearly there, but not quite, so he waits and keeps an eye on it.

Taylor nods, very carefully. After the microwave has beeped and she's sifted icing sugar into the bowl and started to blend everything together - focusing very intently on her tasks - she looks back up at Harry. Slowly, she says, "Speaking of Louis. He didn't come by for lunch today." There's an air of disappointment hovering around her face. "He's always here, being annoying and loud. Do you know if he's okay?"

"He probably had a lunch shift with the kids," Harry says, shrugging. He flips the stand mixer off and dips a tasting spoon into the cream. It's delicious at first taste, so he unlatches the bowl and sets it aside on the worktop. "But if you're that concerned -- me and him are going for drinks tonight with some friends, want to come with?"

"I don't know," Taylor says, frowning at the marshmallow fondant she's just started in on kneading together. Her cheeks are quite pink. "Maybe?"

"I've invited Zayn, too," Harry admits. He gets a knife and goes back to his batter, slicing the lemon open and squeezing it out, open hand between the fruit and the bowl in order to catch any errant seeds.

"Well, in that case," Taylor says. "I do want to see the two of you interact in the wild."

"Taylor, you're a baker, not a nature television narrator," Harry reminds her.

Taylor flings a handful of powdered sugar at him, and shrieks when he makes as if he's going to fling the lemon juice cupped in his hand on her in retaliation. "I can be both," she says, primly. "You can be anything you want if you try hard and believe in yourself, you know."

"Is that why you're pretending that you don't have a crush on Louis?" Harry asks. It's a shot in the dark -- he's still not sure whether she actually does or not, and won't let himself decide for sure unless she tells him as much to his face-- but when she blushes and tells him to go get her their food colouring, he knows he's onto something.

+++

Niall and Liam only join in for dinner, as it's Liam's mum's birthday that weekend and they're leaving for Wolverhampton that night, but Zayn shows up promptly -- a surprise, as he used to run late to everything before -- so the five of them get a nice meal together before Liam and Niall head out.

Taylor's agreed to come by after they're done eating, so Harry texts her when Niall and Liam are making noises about getting their bill.

"You guys do this often?" Zayn asks, as Liam rummages around, trying to fit his card back into his wallet. "Family dinner at the pub?"

"Usually it's just drinks," Harry says, dryly. "Every time Louis is having love woes."

"So, often," Niall laughs. 

"Not _that_ often," Louis insists. 

"No more than twice a week," says Liam, with a twinkle in his eyes.

"Speaking of your love woes," Harry says. "Louis, Taylor's going to be here in about fifteen minutes."

"She _what_ ," says Louis, going first pale, and then very red. "Harry, how can I get drunk about my unrequited crush on her if she's _actively here_?"

"I thought you might like to see her today," Harry says. It's not a lie, per se, but it's certainly not the truth. "Given that you didn't skulk by during lunch."

"That's very thoughtful of you," Louis says, but his tone says 'fuck you, Styles.' Harry just smiles winningly at him in return. 

"I'm sorry we're going to miss this," Liam says, even as he stands to shrug on his coat. His voice is rich with restrained laughter. 

"Hey, I could stay," Niall jokes, but Liam gives him a puppy dog look, so he shakes his head and spreads his hands. "See what I have to live with?"

Zayn's eyes are crinkling at the corners as he looks at them. "Good to see you again, man."

"You too, brother," Niall says, leaning in to kiss him on top of his head. "Don't be a stranger, okay?"

"You got it," Zayn says. He claps Niall on the shoulder, and gives Liam a fist bump as they file away from the table.

Louis leans forward as soon as they're gone. "Overlooking Harry's weird decisions," he starts.

"Excuse you, one of my 'weird decisions' was to invite Zayn here, too," Harry interrupts.

Louis ignores him. "How long are you going to be in town for?"

"Dee and her girlfriend are getting married," says Zayn. "I'm here for the whole summer. I came to help with that and stuff, and since I don't have to be back at school till September, I figured I'd just stay."

"So you really will have to come chill with us," Louis says, nudging Zayn.

He smiles, faintly, in return. "'Course."

"Good," Harry says. His voice sounds raspy when he talks, so he takes a long sip of his gin and ginger to soothe his throat. He takes another when Zayn gives him a long, searching look.

"I do have to point out," Louis says, loudly enough that Harry startles and breaks eye contact with Zayn to look at Louis. "That it would have been nice for a heads up, at least."

"Sorry, I know I should have texted," Zayn says, but Louis shakes his head.

"I mean that Harry invited Taylor," he says. "I can't talk about how she didn't flirt back at me last Tuesday when I came by at lunch if she's _here_. I have had _zero_ time for mental preparation."

"This one time, my cat Dusty was trying to catch a mouse," says Harry, after another fortifying sip of his drink. "She like, stalked one through the house and finally found it in the kitchen. It ran at her and she bolted out of there and ran to the door and kept scratching at it till we let her out." He rolls his neck, stretching his back - it's sore from standing and kneading Taylor's fondant for so long earlier. "She refused to go back in the kitchen for, like, a week after."

Louis gives Harry an incredulous look. "I'm not going to run away from Taylor now that you're bringing her to my territory," he says. "But thank you for a typical Styles story, bro."

"My pleasure," Harry says. He wishes his gin and ginger had a straw. That's the best part of really sickeningly fruity drinks - the straws. There's so much oral appeal to them, and he's had enough to drink now -- even with food -- that he's ready to try to catch the straw with his tongue to get a sip when Zayn is looking his way, whilst pretending he doesn't notice Zayn's attention at all. There's enough alcohol coursing, warmly, through his veins that a full-on charm offensive sounds like a grand old idea right now.

He settles for rescuing his unused spoon and stirring the melting ice into his drink with it, licking the drips of drink from it thoroughly before dropping it back on the table.

Taylor shows up shortly thereafter. Louis, for all his complaining, seems completely unphased when she sits down, passing her a drink menu and leaning in to make recommendations.

Harry beckons Zayn closer. "Louis really likes explaining British things to Taylor," he whispers, loudly. "Even though she's lived here for, like, four years now and knows most of them already."

"I do not," Louis says from across the table, though the flush on his cheek belies his words. "I'm testing her. She's a fake Brit."

"Oh, thanks, Tomlinson," Taylor says, rolling her eyes, but she looks charmed. Disgusting. Utterly disgusting.

"So," Zayn says, having a sip of his beer. He's been nursing the same one for an hour now, but it's finally nearly gone. "Harry's been with everyone at this table, then?"

Harry, who has picked up his glass for another sip, nearly drops it on the table. Zayn's never acknowledged their history like this before - not when it's just the two of them, and certainly not around anyone else.

Louis looks just as shocked as Harry feels, but Taylor, bless her, nods smoothly. "That's right," she says. "He's what you Brits would call - Louis, correct me if I'm wrong on this - a right little minx."

Louis laughs, a surprised burst of noise. "Close enough, love," he says. 

"Don't slut-shame me, Taylor," Harry says. "I've just got a lot of love to go around. Anyway, I do it all for Louis, really."

"You realise when you say that it sounds like you're in a weird kinky threeway thing, right?" Taylor asks, eyes sparkling, and oh, she is on _fire_ tonight. Louis looks shell-shocked. Harry makes a mental note to give Taylor a high-five later.

"And yet he keeps telling me no," Harry says, morosely. He's unable to bite down on his smile, though, so he abandons the act. 

"Sorry, Haz," Louis says, faux-apologetically, reaching across to pat Harry on the hand. "Maybe someday."

"I've gone and moved on," Harry tells him, solemnly as he possibly can manage - so, not very. "You've missed your chance."

"I'll pencil in feeling sad about that as soon as possible, shall I?" Louis quips, waggling his eyebrows.

"A simple yes was completely sufficient," Zayn says, rolling his eyes, but he's smiling, too, so Harry counts it as a win.

+++

They move to a different bar eventually, because Taylor decides what she really wants to do, more than anything else in the world, is beat Louis at darts. They cluster around the dartboard in the tiny room off to the side there - Taylor marches off to get a box of darts, and Harry goes to pick up drinks for everyone.

By the time he gets back, she and Louis are already in fierce contention for points. Zayn is sitting back on the bench along the wall, so Harry slides into place next to him and passes him his drink. "I'm competitive," he admits. "But not like this."

"Yeah," Zayn says, simply, and they watch Taylor gesticulating widely, pronouncing her prowess while touching Louis on the shoulder, and Louis's answering laugh and the way he grabs for the darts to 'show her a thing or two' for a little while, before Harry clears his throat.

"I've missed you," he says, cautiously. The walk over to the second bar sobered him up a little, and he's not quite ready to unbutton his shirt another step and stretch in a way that shows off his chest anymore. He's feeling loose, now, a little tired, limbs heavy in his body. "Texting wasn't the same."

"Texting was awkward," Zayn agrees. He's quiet for a long minute, during which Taylor makes a bulls-eye and shrieks in triumph. "I missed you too."

"Even though I made you give me all those tattoos?"

"Even though," Zayn says, smiling into his drink. He takes a sip, and then turns to face Harry a little bit. "Look, I want to say something to you."

"Go for it," Harry says. 

"It's about what you said," says Zayn. "About why you got the tattoos."

Oh, god. Okay. Harry picks up his drink and takes a long, deep swallow for the fortification. "I'm listening."

"It was really weird, for you to say that," says Zayn. "You hadn't said a thing after we hooked up, so I thought you weren't interested in doing it again, and then all of a sudden you were talking about excuses to see me? I had no idea what to make of it." 

"I didn't say anything?" Harry says, shocked. He sets his drink back down on the bench next to him. " _You_ didn't say anything! I didn't think I needed to say anything, what with how I kept getting hard when you were tattoing me."

"I had no way of knowing if that happened every time or not!" says Zayn. "Like, for other tattoos. You seem like the type who would be into that!"

"Okay, that's fair, I am that person," says Harry. He's never not got hard during a tattoo before, but it had felt particularly intimate when Zayn was the one holding the needle. "But that doesn't mean I didn't want it with you specifically."

"Oh," says Zayn. He looks a little shell-shocked. Harry doesn't blame him. "I see."

"Is that why you brought us up earlier?" Harry asks. "I was a little surprised that you mentioned it at all. You never had before."

"I could tell," Zayn says. He smiles a little - it verges on a smirk. "Yeah, I brought it up because I've been thinking about it ever since I saw you again." He sucks his lip between his teeth, releasing it slowly, and gives Harry a quick once-over. 

"Me, too," Harry admits. Very carefully and very slowly, so that Zayn can tell him to stop at any time, he reaches over and puts a hand on Zayn's knee.

"Well," says Zayn. "This has been one massive lesson in the importance of clear communication."

"In the interest of learning from that lesson," says Harry. "I am communicating to you _right now_ that I am still very interested in sucking your dick."

"Forward," Zayn remarks, and Harry laughs, helplessly, until Zayn puts his hand on Harry's forearm. "How very Harry Styles of you."

"It's my truest nature," Harry agrees.

"I would do well to emulate that, huh," say Zayn. He waggles his eyebrows at Harry.

"It's never led me astray." Harry pauses, then frowns. "Well. Not usually."

"Well, then," says Zayn. "In the interest of emulating your truest nature, I'm going to kiss you now, I think."

"Forward," Harry says, leaning in.

Zayn captures his lips at an odd angle, at first, but Harry tilts his head more to one side, and Zayn pressis in a little closer, and suddenly they're linked up so, so incredibly well. Harry lets his mouth part, and Zayn teases along the edge of Harry's lower lip with the tip of his tongue. Harry brings one hand up to cradle Zayn's neck. The fingers of his other one are caught, twisting in the belt loops of his own jeans, the dull ache of tugging against the fabric the only thing keeping him aware enough to stay focused on the totality of the kiss.

Harry startles a little when Zayn brings a hand up to Harry's waist. It's hot through the thin fabric of Harry's shirt, his calloused index finger sliding between the hem of Harry's shirt and the waistband of his jeans, and Harry sways into the touch, scratching lightly at Zayn's neck as he tries to lick into Zayn's mouth.

But Zayn fends him off, nipping at Harry's lower lip, sucking it between his teeth. He grazes it a little, and Harry shivers at the way Zayn's sharp incisors are scraping, hauntingly gently, at the flesh of his lips, until Zayn's grip tightens on Harry's waist and he bites down fully, sharp and hard enough to draw a gasp from deep within Harry. 

Louis and Taylor shout, suddenly and nearly in unison, and Harry and Zayn startle back at the same time. Zayn doesn't move his hand away from Harry's waist, though, and Harry's hand only falls from Zayn's neck to his bicep. 

"Ugh, they weren't even _looking_ ," Taylor says, casting a look back at Harry and Zayn, but she winks at Harry all the same.

"Utterly useless," Louis says, dismissively. "That was the best sequence of throws I've ever seen in this game and we're the only witnesses."

"Do you expect me to be sorry?" Harry calls. His voice is gravely even to his own ears; Zayn's hand twitches against his skin.

"Obviously," Louis says, scathingly, but his eyes are soft when he looks at Harry, so Harry grins back at him. 

"Does this mean I'm fair game for Louis now?" Zayn asks, sitting up straight and cracking his back.

"Are you my ex?" Harry asks, frowning exaggeratedly at Zayn.

"S'pose not," says Zayn, and he leans in for another kiss.

+++

_Looks like you had fun with Taylor last night_ , Harry texts Louis the next morning.

Louis's reply is instantaneous. _Duh_ , he sends, and then: _Fuck you anyway for blindsiding me_ , and then, _Did you n Z just pretend to go separate ways last night or did you really not hook up after that steamy kiss!!!_

 _Told him I wanna suck his dick,_ Harry texts. _But I wanna take him on a date first_

 _Thats so gay lol_ , Louis says, and follows it up with five thumbs-up emojis. 

Well. It's nice to get that seal of approval.

+++

Zayn comes back to the bakery with his sister during her decoration consultation. "You're a baker," he says, once they've finalized the colour scheme and sorts of decorations that they want. He's standing up, leaning against the table, propped up with one hand. It's clear he's suppressing a grin. "You must know good places to eat."

"Might do," Harry agrees. He can feel a smile growing across his face, despite himself. "Were you looking for a recommendation?"

"Yeah," says Zayn. "There's this guy I want to ask on a date tonight, see."

"Sounds romantic," Harry says, raising his eyebrows at Zayn. Except - maybe they're not doing proper romance. He'd like to, but maybe not yet. "Or sexy?"

"Maybe both," Zayn says. Distantly, Harry notices that he's tracing little designs into the table with his index finger. "If he's interested."

"Don't see why he wouldn't be," says Harry. "There's a really nice new Thai place a few miles from here."

"Sounds great," says Zayn. "Where is it?"

Harry gives him the name and Zayn thanks him and leaves. Befuddled, Harry goes back into the kitchen. His phone, wedged precariously between a carton of eggs and some blocks of butter that he and Taylor still need to move into the walk-in, lights up with a text almost as soon as he goes inside.

It's from Zayn. Harry thumbs the text open, and reads: _I'd love to take you on a date. A friend told me about this great Thai place nearby - wanna meet me there at 7?_

Harry barks a laugh, loud enough that Taylor turns around from the special-order Selena Gomez-themed birthday cake she's adding finishing touches to. "You okay?" she asks. 

"Got a hot date tonight," Harry tells her, quickly texting Zayn _Your friend has great taste! I'll see you there_. 

"Oooooh," Taylor says, sing-song. "Does Harry have a cruuuuush?"

"Don't think I didn't see you walk up to that bakery door with Louis this morning, Taylor Alison Swift," Harry says. "Don't even talk to me about crushes."

"Touché," Taylor says. "But when you're done being smug about that comeback, can you help me out? I can't get Selena's hair right."

"It looks fine to me," Harry says, but he walks over anyway.

+++

Harry takes a quick shower to get the smell of sugar out of his hair. Leaving it to air-dry, he pulls on the tightest, skinniest pair of jeans without holes that he owns - forgoing underwear - and a silk shirt that looks great unbuttoned down to his moth tattoo and feels great in a wide range of potential temperature fluctuations.

When he gets to the restaurant, Zayn is in all black. His hair has recently been done - he's gone and had the sides freshly-buzzed, and the long bits are slicked back in a lovely swirl that looks great on him. Not that anything doesn't look good on him, but. 

"Fancy meeting you here, stranger," he says, and Zayn laughs. 

The date is nice. Zayn tells Harry all about the work he's doing in graduate school, the classical Urdu and English poetry he's comparing for his thesis, and Harry tells Zayn almost everything about the bakery. He, of course, leaves out the source of the cakes, but he does talk at length about how great it is, to have his own brick-and-mortar cake business with a best friend who shares his passion for decorating them. Harry gets the prawns and Zayn gets the chicken and they trade halfway through when Harry finally admits that he accidentally ordered something far too spicy for him to handle.

After, Harry takes Zayn - who is living at his parent's place - back to his flat, and that's even nicer. 

It happens, it seems, in flashes. Harry presses Zayn against the door as soon as it's closed, twisting his fingers into the sides of Zayn's black t-shirt and pulling him in for a sharp, biting kiss, hard enough to bruise Zayn's lips, and Zayn returns in kind, hands going around behind Harry's back and scratching, hard enough to leave welts. It doesn't feel like a tattoo gun, but it's clear that Zayn is going for the same level of ouch, and Harry groans into the kiss, releasing Zayn's lower lip from between his teeth so that Zayn can return the favor, biting hard enough that it pulls a yelp - a _manly_ yelp - from deep within Harry.

And then Zayn is launching himself forward, reaching down to palm Harry's dick, roughly, in one hand, bringing him from a low-grade half-chub to a full-on hard-on and panting with a few well-placed strokes of his thumb.

"It's unfair, how good you are at this," Harry mumbles, and Zayn laughs, low in his stomach.

"Do you have any idea how much I've wanted to get my hand on this dick of yours again?" he asks, pressing his mouth against the sweaty crook of Harry's neck as he talks, pausing to nip at the skin there and then lick over the area in little, kittenish strokes. "Every fucking tally mark, Harry. Every single one."

"Mutual," Harry says, and lets Zayn push him over to the couch. 

For all their talk, they only make out on the couch, Zayn straddling Harry's lap, one knee wedged in between the back of the couch and the cushions, cradling Harry's neck in his hands as Harry sinks his fingertips into the meat on Zayn's hips, holding him down against his crotch as much as possible. It goes on for ages, until Harry's mouth feels raw and wet from the length and intensity of their kissing, lips tingling and cold every time he pulls away from the hot slide of Zayn's tongue and his teeth. 

It isn't until he registers that he's rocking his hips up in tiny little thrusts, trying to get purchase against Zayn's thighs but really only succeeding in sliding his dick against the denim of the crotch of his jeans - damp, now, with precome - in a way that could lead to chafing very quickly and unpleasantly, that he wedges a hand between him and Zayn and presses it on Zayn's chest, pushing him back lightly. "I have a bed," he says.

"Most people do," Zayn agrees, but he sits back - firmly and squarely on Harry's straining cock - and runs a finger down Harry's sweaty chest, through the gap of his shirt, until he reaches Harry's ticklish belly and Harry squirms at the touch. "Show me."

So Harry leads Zayn to his bedroom, and they shed clothes en route, Harry undoing the last button on his shirt and letting it fall in the hallway, Zayn pulling his t-shirt over his head as they go. Once they hit the bedroom, Harry unbuckles his jeans and pushes them down, unceremoniously.

"No pants?" Zayn asks, as Harry kicks his legs free. Admiringly, teasingly, he adds, "You wanton trollop."

"Big words," Harry says, reaching over and tugging at Zayn's beltloops until he's pushed his own jeans and boxers down.

His mouth goes dry when Zayn's cock - long, slightly curved, and not terribly thick - springs free. It's so hard and dark red that it's nearly purple, glistening with precome at the top.

Harry reaches out and touches, gently, feeling the softness of the skin and the heat of it, until Zayn laughs and rolls his eyes. "You can suck it, you know."

"Thanks for the permission," Harry says, but he's already pulling Zayn over to his bed -- he'd drop to his knees, but he wants his back to be in top form in case there's a re-play in the morning - and pushing him back onto the duvet.

He starts by licking a line up the underside of Zayn's cock, holding his tongue hard and flat against the vein there. Zayn's circumcised, which Harry had forgotten. He's used to playing with foreskin, running his tongue around the slit at the head of a dick and using his mouth to slip the skin down over the shaft of it, but with Zayn, he marvels at the way Zayn gasps, muffled as he bites into his own arm, when Harry experimentally grazes the base of the head with his teeth gently and purposefully, ready to pull back if Zayn complains.

He doesn't complain.

The bitterness of Zayn's precome is leeching onto Harry's tongue, and he swallows the taste back happily. He chases the flavour, pressing the tip of his tongue against the slit of Zayn's cock until Zayn gasps and pulls Harry up and off of him by the roots of his hair.

Harry has to palm his own cock roughly at the feeling, the way that Zayn's hands in his hair make another blurt of precome collect at the tip of it. "What?" he asks, a line of spit extending between his mouth and Zayn's cock as he pulls off of it. His voice is already wrecked even though he hasn't even got to the deepthroating yet.

"Your thighs," Zayn says. He already looks dazed as fuck, and as Harry watches, he shakes his head sharply, as if to clear it. "Don't make me come. I wanna fuck your thighs."

God. That's such a great idea. Zayn is a genius. "Yeah," Harry says, immediately. "Yeah, okay."

He gets his lube out from under his pillow and passes it back to Zayn, who tugs at Harry until he's propped up on his hands and knees, bum high in the air. 

There's a little snick as Zayn opens the bottle, and the squelch of him squeezing it out, and then he's pressing his fingers - hard, scratching a little with his nails as he goes - into the flesh of Harry's inner thighs, coating them liberally with slick. "Here," he says, leaning down to press a kiss to the small of Harry's back and then working up to Harry's shoulder blade, which he kisses and then bites hard, hard enough for Harry to shout, hard enough to make Harry's cock twitch where it's pressed, hot and full, against his stomach.

And then Zayn is lining up behind Harry, pressing his dick between Harry's thighs, pushing forward until the tip is bumping up against Harry's balls, nudging them in a way that shoots shivers down Harry's spine.

"You good?" Zayn mumbles, biting the same spot on Harry's shoulder again, lightly this time.

"Yeah," Harry says. "Yeah."

And then Zayn is rolling his hips forward, again and again and again, undulating slowly as he balances himself against Harry's back and against Harry's bed with his with both knees and one hand, reaching around Harry's front with the other and wrapping it, still wet with lube, around Harry's cock.

"God, you're big," Zayn says. Harry can hardly make the words out, between the way Zayn's mouth is mashed up against his back still and the roaring in Harry's ears that Zayn's firm grip - thumb pressed firm, just shy of too-painful, at the base of the head of it - is causing.

"Just wait till I fuck you with it," Harry says, and Zayn curses, hips stuttering forward until he catches himself and gets back into his rhythm, cock thrusting through Harry's sensitive thighs and hand twisting, strong and sure and in-pace, around Harry's cock. 

"You're so hot," Zayn tells him. "Fuck. I'm so glad we're doing - fuck."

"Me, too," Harry says, rocking back so that the head of Zayn's cock catches against his perineum, nudging strong enough to make Harry gasp. "Same."

"Fuck," Zayn says. He's losing his rhythm again, and chanting "Fuck, fuck, fuck."

"Come on," Harry hisses, rocking back against Zayn again, squeezing his thighs around Zayn's cock. "Come the fuck on."

"I am," Zayn promises. "I am. I -"

He grunts an 'aaah!' instead of saying 'am,' and then he's spilling all over the pack of Harry's balls, his load hot and thick, a string of come flinging to Harry's dick and making the slide of Zayn's hand that much slicker. 

"Fuck," Harry says, as Zayn slowly stops thrusting and, instead, focuses on jerking him off with stronger, faster movements, twisting his hand every time it passes over the head of Harry's cock, rubbing against Harry's slit with his thumb. "Christ, Zayn. Jesus - God."

"Zayn will do just fine," Zayn says, voice rich with amusement and exhaustion. 

When he slides his thumbnail just under the edge of Harry's foreskin, the shock and ache of it is just enough to make Harry shout and come, too, his load jerking all over his stomach and his nice summer duvet.

They shove the whole thing off the bed before they curl around each other to fall asleep.

+++

It takes Harry a full thirty minutes to realize that Louis texting him a link to the I Just Had Sex video, followed by about fifteen exclamation points, is not, in fact, Louis being creepily psychic.

When he catches on, he copies the link and sends it right back to Louis.

+++

Even though he and Zayn have been seeing each other off and on for several weeks, Harry is all set to deliver the cake to the Nelson-Malik wedding reception and go back to the bakery; it's standard operating procedure.

But Zayn catches him as he's unloading the last of the fairy cakes and setting them up around the two tiers of wedding cake proper, and drags him aside, leaning in to talk low in Harry's ear. "If I have to suck it up and dance," he tells Harry, "Then I want to have at least one dance with my boyfriend."

 _Boyfriend_. That word still sends a shiver down the pit of Harry's stomach.

"Fine, I guess," he says, trying to sound long-suffering and failing at it entirely. 

He ends up staying for most of the reception, even though he's severely underdressed for it. Zayn finally gets his dance after everyone has already eaten the cake, and applauded Harry for it.

They're swaying together, rhythmless, to a Carly Rae Jepsen song that seems more appropriate to the start of a relationship than the celebration of commitment that a wedding is, when Zayn leans in and kisses the corner of Harry's mouth. "Your cake was so good," he says, as he pulls away.

"Thanks," Harry says. He reaches up and tucks an errant strand of Zayn's hair back into place. "I'm really glad you think so."

"It almost tastes as good as the cakes Mum would make from a packet when we were kids," Zayn tells Harry.

Harry stiffens. God. Is he about to be found out? He doesn't think Zayn would mind, per se, but not even Louis knows about the box mixes, and Louis knows _everything_ about Harry. If not from Harry, then from Taylor.

"No, I really do mean it as a compliment," Zayn says, and Harry relaxes.

"Tell you what," he tells Zayn, smiling impishly at him. "If we're still together in half a year - and I hope we are-"

"You sap," Zayn says, so Harry brushes a brief kiss across his lips in agreement.

"As I was saying," he says, after he pulls away. "I promise you I'll make you a box cake for your birthday."

"Only if you still do them decorations you put on everything," says Zayn.

It's all Harry can do not to laugh. "I promise," he says. "I'll make all the buttercream myself in exchange for one more tally mark."

"Incorrigible," Zayn says, shaking his head. He presses his thumb into the spot where Harry's got his most recent one, and Harry hisses, happily. "Truly incorrigible."

**Author's Note:**

> i'm on [tumblr](http://dulosis.tumblr.com), and if you liked this i'd love it if you reblogged the [fic post](http://dulosis.tumblr.com/post/154968818841/fic-you-me-burning-matches-1d-harry)! 
> 
> please let me know your thoughts :)


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